We didn't have a ton of time, really. The weekend was way overloaded, so we only got to visit for a few hours Saturday and Sunday. It was fun, though -- we crammed as many new games in as we could in the time we had.

DastardlyOldMan wrote:Happy Thanksgiving to all you people living in the past - Friday afternoon here The future is just lovely.

Was a lovely, Thursday here in SoCal. Where are you at these days, DOM?

Just got in to Rotorua, NZ yesterday (after Auckland, Paihia, and Whitianga). Redwood forest, geysers & geothermal stuff here, as well as some white-water rafting and lots of ~adventure stuffs (which I typically won't do, but I might roll down a hill in a giant ball a time or two). Enjoying myself thoroughly, and seeing tons of incredible sights. After this, I head up to Matamata, better known as Hobbiton, where I hope to simply walk into Mordor (or maybe take a shuttle bus, either way).

One does not simply walk into Mordor. There's a shuttle bus from Taupo.

Tongariro Crossing - this one was a tough climb, and by the end, I was dragging quite a bit. We couldn't climb Mt. Doom itself (Ngauruhoe) - it's considered tapu, or sacred ground now (you used to be able to go to the summit), but I got pretty close to it. Really impressive, worth the few blisters that I'm sporting.

The Fairy Catmother wrote:I entered an online pet portrait contest, if anyone could take a sec and vote, I’d appreciate it!

#Vote for: Catmother's Cat

More in a bit?

7z7

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

March Madness is aptly named. Greetings from the final four broadcast trailer in San Antonio Texas.

Did I mention the madness is real?

More in a bit,

7z7

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

On the one hand, I'm a little jealous - just because you're in the middle of it all doing what (I highly suspect) you love, and orchestrating the whole madness to bend to your whim (or maybe having your whim bent around the madness a touch).

On the other hand, I'm getting ready to go hike up around the mountains, and while Easter weekend is a HUGE holiday weekend here, the trails should be pretty peaceful & serene, and I'm digging that quite a bit myself.

DastardlyOldMan wrote:On the one hand, I'm a little jealous - just because you're in the middle of it all doing what (I highly suspect) you love, and orchestrating the whole madness to bend to your whim (or maybe having your whim bent around the madness a touch).

On the other hand, I'm getting ready to go hike up around the mountains, and while Easter weekend is a HUGE holiday weekend here, the trails should be pretty peaceful & serene, and I'm digging that quite a bit myself.

I could use some vacations, having a 4 day weekend last week is not enough rest from all the... "eventualities" that have been going on at work this last month, starting with a epidemic of The Mumps™ that seems to be unstoppable

March Madness is over, the masters is in progress (but the province of another team) & I’m at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Vegas through middle of next week.

Tonight, 3 of us are jumping off the top of the stratosphere casino tower (their first jump, my third). The others both work for my old company -

Lots of conversation from the old office - things that are going well, things that are stalled. Places I’m missed and things that load balanced without me balancing the load. I’m glad for the conversation.

Things are going well, except at the casino tables. I’ve lost more money in Canto Bight than I planned & need to budget the rest of the trip.

How are you guys?

More in a bit,

7z7

How’s life for

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

Relatively mump-free, even though every week there are at least 2-3 more cases. I am vaccinated against the mumps, but if push comes to shove I might have to stop hanging out with my brother and my newborn nephew just to be safe.

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

Look. I think we are all good with werewolves, vampires, sociopaths, pirates, ninjas, people from the future and past, and zombies, but there's no place for baseball playing ghosts here. Just regular ghost sure, but once they start playing baseball they need to get the hell out.

Iron Clad Burrito wrote:I have a game idea, and a desire, but I lack time.

It's Firefly, but this time the good guys are the good guys. Not everyone can be special, but some will be.

If someone wants to run it, I'll give you the lowdown.

I would return for this. Firewalls be damned, I am a leaf on the...

More in a bit?

7z7

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

This is a venting post, regarding the "stuff" that has been happening this recent days. Sorry for the long text, but I guess that posting it here can be as therapeutic as using the VR or The Lounge back on Ars (not to mention I haven't been a sub for a while )

Remember that some time ago I mentioned house hunting and stuff with my girlfriend? I proposed to her shortly after that, she said yes and we started making preparations for the whole party: We have the place where the reception is going to happen, we went to the nearest church and registered ourselves in the waiting list for a time slot in November 2019 and started scouting the requisites for the civic ceremony, which is the legally binding part of the whole enchilada. While the reception and church things are still far on the horizon (1.5 years, to be precise) we want to take our time to prevent stress later down the line. Things are looking good and we're super excited and scared and happy

Flash forward to 1-2 months ago: My girlfriend's grandmother, who has lived with my gf and her parents practically forever, falls ill. They go to the doctor, who gives them some medication and tells them that she has an infection in her lungs, but it's nothing to worry about. After some weeks of her not getting better they take her to another doctor, and the bad news start to roll out: she has Pancreatic (or Liver, I can't remember)Cancer, and it's in advanced stages, also her bile ducts are partially obstructed making it hard for her to digest food, accompanied by some pretty awful pains because of the bile not draining correctly from her body. The doctor tells them that the whole prognosis isn't good, but that they would try to do a quality of life operation on her to help her at least not feel pain when eating, he gives her 4-5 months at most to live. My gf's family just tells grandma that she has the bile duct obstruction and the planned procedure to remove the obstruction.

Now all of this is super heavy news for everyone, because as I said my gf's grandma has basically lived with them since my gf was a toddler. And I've known her for the 3 years we have been together. She was a super cheerful woman, entirely devoted to her family and her religion. Her sons, daughters, grandkids and basically everyone goes to visit her while she waits for a date where she can be operated on. She was so close to my girlfriend and her parents she always said that she just wanted enough time to see my girlfrend married, once that had happened she would have no regrets and could leave in peace. And now you see where this is going

It was rushed, but we really thought and talked about it, and we got legally married last Saturday, it was a super small civic ceremony, only our closest relatives were there. Of course the church part and reception part are still on for the next year, but we really didn't want to regret not doing this when we had the chance.

My wife's grandma passed away last night, she had been prepped for 2 days for the obstruction removal, and after a successful surgery yesterday and initial good prognosis her body just gave up. After several resucitation attempts they told us there was nothing we could do. Now I know this isn't anyone's fault, she was pretty sick and even when the doctors finished the surgery they told us that she had more tumors than what the original prognosis had but I still feel depressed because I can't do anything to help my wife and her family besides be there to lend a shoulder. At the same time I feel bittersweet about the whole ordeal, because we managed to make her last wish come true and I have no regrets on rushing our wedding. She was a great person, and even though she was not a direct part of my family for long, I'll miss her.

Damn that was depressing, again sorry for the wall of text, but I needed to put this somewhere

Wow - congratulations and condolences. It sounds like she lived a full life, and that's all any of us can really ask for. In terms of doing anything to help, there's not much that can ever be done in these situations, other than lending a shoulder. I've always had a difficult time processing grief (my own, and helping others with theirs), but for me, reading about the cycle and aspects of grief gave me something ~proactive to do in a time when that's tough to come by. For the most part, just be there, listen to your new family, help them talk about her life and help them remember how wonderful it really was.

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

Ash was admitted to the veterinary ICU yesterday morning at 3:30AM. He's still there getting IV drugs and oxygen support. We've visited him at every opportunity and he looks so incredibly weak. He's lost 3 pounds (he was 126 in the picture I posted in game.) He is a 1 year old puppy receiving care, he should pull through and be back to chasing his brother (cat) in no time. And this has been the absolute worst week of my life. I can't focus on anything. I can't think about anything except my pupper. And there is absolutely nothing I can do. The vet thinks he'll be able to come home in a couple of days. But he needs to get off Oxygen and then be able to eat and keep food down.

I don't know you folks with kiddos deal with this. My girlfriend and I are absolute messes, I can't imagine if he was a kid! Respect.

Omega wrote:Happy pupper news! He's eating! No details yet, vet is supposed to call us after 3:30... He might be able to come home tomorrow!!!

Awesome. Hope the pup keeps doing better.

Before we had kids our dogs were our kids. Complete with parent teacher conferences and report cards. In retrospect we may have taken things a bit too far

More in a bit?

7z7

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

Well, as I said on the Game Thread, my participation on the Mafia Championship just ended! I was lynched @ Day 4 and here are some highlights of my participation:

Day 1:True to form, everyone suspeced the shit out of me since my first post. I mentioned that we use to do "random" voting on D1 and then had to explain to more than half the thread why I was not doing that on the championship game, only to have absolutely no one buy the reason I gave: Because I didn't know if it was a faux pas there to do the whole random vote. After that I got labeled as "nervous" and "scared of being lynched".

At EoD I was in a 3 or 4 way tie, that I proceeded to expand by adding one more player. After someone voted a singleton to reverse the tie I ended up following them to tie another wagon and restore the tie we had going at first. The person I voted for last I had a bit of a gut feeling they were a wolf so I kept my vote there. Little would I know that this shenanigans would end up being my biggest headache the whole game (I expected backlash, but not that it would result into a big confrontation). A human died by random after tons of people just scrambled votes, my wagon lost steam and we ended up with only 2 wagons

Day 2:We got a wolf thanks to the Jack of All Trades using their night kill, and the wolves didn't kill anyone that night. I spent the day explaining myself (even made a wall of text explaining the math behind my self pres/tiemaking and the whole wagon switching that I had started, and this would turn into a constant all 36 hours the day phase lasted. I didn't had that much to go on because a lot of players switched sides and I ended up voting for the person I had tied last day, they ended up being a wolf and we rejoiced: 2 wolfs in 2 days? we were on a roll! I had been again tied at the top, but my wagon lost steam in the last leg of the day

Day 3:The arguably worst day for me. The same line of questions from D1 and 2 were thrown in my direction and I just ended up making a case for myself over and over, saying I wouldn't answer more questions and would try to get some reads/feels going on; at this point the whole charade had turned annoying, and I was losing more time explaining myself than actually doing analysis/reads on people. The highest posting member started a standoff with me and after more than 3 IRL days defending myself I bursted: I was tired of having the same lame line of questioning, and it had turned a fun game into a constant pain in the ass because no one was actually interested in my defense, they just liked to send the same accusations my way, then getting dismissive and standoffish when I tried to defend me because "I was not trying to solve the game, just defend myself" and it had gotten tiresome. I spent most of the rest of the day off thread to calm myself. People tied me for the lynch then lost steam after I voted for myself out of frustration.

Day 4:I came back to the thread with renewed ambitions and another, smaller standoff ensued while I was preparing my reads. I still posted them though, but it seemed like it wouldn't sway people, as this time I was the top wagon and it looked like it would stay that way. At this point I was partially relieved, as every day people would just incessantly second guess themselves about my alignment: I was a wolf to them because of my posts, but they all felt I was town in a weird way, so they would vote for me then get scared at the last second, then the next day start to again argue why I was a wolf but not really. I accepted my death if it meant people would finally move past the mystery of my alignment and actually started looking for wolves in other places, so I didn't vote for self preservation, not to mention I didn't have strong feelings for the other possible wagon, so why risk another player if people actually wanted me dead. That about wraps up my participation there. I went above the minimun post count but still I was way behind the top posters.

- Keeping up is hard. I ended up in one of the most active games out there, it's only Day 5 and there's already 6k+ posts!

- Related to the former point: All this posting means you end up needing a long, long time to actually process everything that's been posted, because everyone second guesses and changes position in a relatively constant basis, so I didn't get any decent reads: I was so overwhelmed I could see everyone being at least as wolfy as they were townie, and some players didn't like vote analysis at EoD without context, so that certainly helped to add to my suspicion

- "Metagaming" is kind of a norm: Investigate the home forum of the players, see who they have played with, outright ask them how they play as wolf/human and even timezone discussion and general availability were all usual things in thread. I was weirded out by it so I did't actaully participate in that.

- Mafia is intense for some people. The top poster had like 700+posts in only 4 in game days, and he would do this long lists of interactions between people and speculate about alignments, possible wolf teammates and strategies. He expected most players to follow his style, so I clashed with them on Day 3 because of my more relaxed style and the constant questions lobbed at my face.

- It was stressful but at the same time I had fun, which I guess is the goal of this game. I wouldn't try it any time soon though, you need tons of time to actually parse everything that's going on, and every word you say it's going to be scrutinized, especially if you screw up and end up voting to lynch a human.

Yeah, after watching Zark's game, I knew I wouldn't play one, but learned a lot just from the sidelines. Hope you picked up some new strategy and ideas, and glad you enjoyed it. I think you made the right choice to clear your signal out of the noise, although that's always tough to do.

Back to the championshipgame: now the high postcount starts to show its diminishing returns: it's Day 5 and the remaining players are having a hard time trying to analyze tone and post history. Their forum has a quick tool for isolating all the posts a player has made in the thread (called ISO), but it's still a metric ton of posts to sift through. I don't envy the work they are now putting into it

Sometimes I feel like moving from my old job to the new one is like moving from TWG to Mafia Universe. Today is one of those days.

More in a bit?

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros

"Zark Helmet is too awesome NOT to use!" -Smirker"The possibility that it's Zark simply murdering someone at a whim each day... would be delightful if true, but I worry that that's too simple a solution." - Okaros